MANILA (Mindanao Examiner / Jan. 5, 2014) – Over 400 Filipino workers in Hong Kong joined a huge rally Sunday at the office of Philippine Consulate General to protest the impending implementation of the increase in premium fee of the PhilHealth for OFW members.
“This is a very unjust and insensitive move to heap upon us OFWs just as the new year is starting. In 2012, the fee was already increased from P900 to P1200, and now they want to collect P2,400 from all OFW members. For the Aquino government, we really are mere cash cows it can squeeze dry anytime it wants to,” Dolores Balladares, chairperson of the United Filipinos in Hong Kong, said in a statement sent to the regional newspaper Mindanao Examiner.
According to Balladares, the fee hike will be a burden to OFWs, especially those whose families were affected by the series of calamities that hit the country last year.
“At this time when many of us are already making ends meet, the new fee hike is very untimely not to mention without any basis ay all. This is the height of insensitivity of the government to the plight of OFWs,” Balladares said.
Balladares said the increase in premium fee is part of the plan of the government to privatize health services by making the public used to the framework of “user’s pay” to absolve the Aquino administration from its responsibility to provide free and sufficient health services to the people.
“Can we also forget the rampant corruption happening in our country? With such an increase, the collection from OFWs will be doubled making the pot even more filled with money that government officials, including the President, can just access at their whim. This will be even worse if the PhilHealth membership becomes mandatory,” she said.
The protesters gave a submission to PCG-HK officials expressing their opposition to the increase as well as to the privatization of health services. Also, they demanded that the pork barrel be re-channeled to social services including health services and hospitals. The submission was made to reinforce the petition last year against the premium hike signed by more than 30,000 OFWs.
“This will just be a first in a series of actions we will do if the hike pushes through. We will pursue more actions until the President himself gets into his insensitive head that overseas Filipinos are not unending sources of funds. Not only have Aquino and his government been useless on OFW rights and welfare, they further compound the hardships we are already experiencing,” Balladares said.
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